TheTheremin: Spooky or Sublime?

When Lev Termen invented the theremin, he envisioned an instrument that was unencumbered by the limitations of traditional instruments in the orchestra. It was his contention that the theremin had a greater range and produced sounds that if the player chose could imitate most other instruments. Furthermore, the theremin could easily produce sounds that were entirely it's own. Termen asserted, playing the theremin was more closely aligned with singing, not only because of its startling resemblance to a human voice, but because just as a singer has an innate ability to produce notes on pitch, so too the thereminist develops a very similar skill moving the hands in free space while very much intuiting where the pitches will be. Termen and his instrument were just one small part of a revolutionary cultural renaissance taking place in the industrialized nations at the dawn of the twentieth century. Every field of endeavor from science to art to film to music to fashion to mathematics was exploding with new innovations. Technology, as embodied in the radio, telephone, car, and even television was the new magic. Termen's invention, in this context can be seen as the most magical of all. Given the limitless possibilities, it's interesting that Termen chose to treat and promote the theremin as a classical instrument. It seems inconceivable that he would fail to see the potential for an entirely new musical language as well as new methods of composition. While a visionary and brilliant inventor, he was also a product of his time. In addition, according to the accounts of live performances, he was quite a showman. As such, he knew his audience and he quickly discovered how spectators responded to hearing "normal" music played on such an unusual instrument. I can state, just from my own experience, that audiences respond best to material they know. It's as if the sheer weirdness of the sight is pleasantly offset by listening to something familiar – in fact, that combination definitely instills wonder in audiences of all ages. Still, the fact remains that the theremin is an instrument totally without antecedent. It was and is the first of its kind. It can be traced to nothing. We can trace the drum and other percussion instruments back to primitive tribes taking hollowed logs and striking them with sticks. Stringed instruments, too, can be traced back to prehistoric cultures that discovered the tones produced by plucking a thin vine or piece of animal gut stretched across a bow. Brass and woodwinds are no exception, their equivalents being shells or hollow reeds with a hole or two that produced tones when blown through. Xylophones, cymbals, all can be traced back through the ages in various forms in many cultures. The theremin, on the other hand, has no precursor whatsoever. In fact, it's a very young instrument, not even 100 years old! No wonder there's hardly any music written for it. There are almost no teachers, just a few instruction books and only a handful of complete methods for learning to play one. Is it any surprise that by the early 1940's, with Lev Termen imprisoned in the Soviet Union, that the theremin was well on its way to being forgotten? While RCA had produced 500 or so, their whereabouts were largely unknown, most people were unable to play them. Then, thanks to Hollywood and Dr. Samuel J. Hoffman, the theremin found a new place in the popular culture. From its debut in the movies, the theremin was reborn. This instrument, once used to play the etheric music of the spheres was now employed in the creation of an entirely original sound in movies – one that would, from that point on, be associated with all that is frightening, creepy or just plain strange. This bizarre sound was utilized to convey the darker sides of the human mind: the DTs (Lost Weekend), psychosis (Spellbound), alien threats (The Day the Earth Stood Still) and sheer terror (It Came From Outer Space). While all instruments have been used frequently to create frightening effects and musical scores, the theremin is the only one that is the quintessential sound of all that is spooky and weird. The theremin's sound is so distinctive that listeners who have never been exposed to it almost always associate with something scary. This was incontrovertibly demonstrated to me the first time I performed for children ranging from four to six years of age. None of them had ever see a horror film, yet even as they entered the room while I was playing the beautiful Part of Your World from Disney's The Little mermaid, at least two children in the group called the sounds "ghost music" or "ghost noise." Further questioning revealed that virtually every child made the connection between the theremin's sound and the sounds of ghosts. It's highly probable that in cartoons and films they'd seen that they'd heard eerie music in one form or another, possibly played on a synth or keyboard. But the indelible imprint was present, even at preschool age. The world's first and greatest virtuoso of the theremin, Clara Rockmore, decried the use of the theremin for producing scary and weird sounds. The fortuitous irony is that it is precisely those sounds and scary scores – even more than Rockmore's body of work – that are responsible in large part for the theremin being around today. Despite the spooky, scary, Sci-Fi stigma the theremin must endure, audiences respond with even more surprise and fascination when they hear its more ethereal vocal side. Following a rendition of Claude Debussy's Clair de Lune as at recent engagement, one spectator stood looking quizzically at the instrument as the audience filed out. He explained that he was an engineer and that he'd always been fascinated with Theremins, although this was the first time he had ever experienced one in a live setting. "I had no idea that the theremin could be so expressive," he said quietly.